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Take a scientist’s findings, but replace their conclusion with your own. Suppress that scientist’s own conclusion. Your view gains the (perceived) endorsement of that scientist, without having to bother with the fineries of the scientist’s own understanding of this work. Use the concept of “complexity” to rubbish (a misleading stereotype of) your “opponent’s” views, then ignore complexity when you put forward your own. It may not be illegal, but it definitely is unethical and will likely garner channel 4 its second reprimand courtesy of Durkin.

For the record, Wunsch’s own position appears to that, while the science is indeed complex, there’s very good evidence for an anthropogenic component to GW, and the precautionary principle should apply. But why don’t we do something radical and trust the man’s own words:

at bottom, it is very difficult to separate human induced change from natural change, certainly not with the confidence we all seek. In these circumstances, it is essential to remember that the inability to prove human-induced change is not the same thing as a demonstration of its absence. It is probably true that most scientists would assign a very high probability that human-induced change is already strongly present in the climate system, while at the same time agreeing that clear-cut proof is not now available and may not be available for a long-time to come, if ever. Public policy has to be made on the basis of probabilities, not firm proof.

Incidently, Johan, ZOGet al: this statement sums up quite nicely the line I and many of my science-denying buddies take on the climate issue. Now that you know, you can stop telling me that I think the world is going to end tomorrow, or that I’m following dogma, or whatever little lies you use to perpetuate your own negatively-defined beliefs.

If Wunsch is so easily “tricked”, one has to wonder what else he has been duped into believing?

Here is verbatim what Wunsch said in the documentary. Please explain how it would even be possible to take these statements out of context:

Professor Wunsch:
25:43 The ocean is the major reservoir into which carbon dioxide goes when it comes out of the atmosphere or to from which it is re-emitted to the the atmosphere. If you heat the surface of the ocean, it tends to emit carbon dioxide. Similarly, if you cool the ocean surface, the ocean can dissolve more carbon dioxide.

Professor Wunsch:
26:44 - The ocean has a memory of past events ugh running out as far as 10,000 years. So for example, if somebody says oh I’m seeing changes in the North Atlantic, this must mean that the climate system is changing, it may only mean that something happened in a remote part of the ocean decades or hundreds of years ago who’s effects are now beginning to show up in the North Atlantic.

Professor Wunsch:
49:22 - The models are so complicated, you can often adjust them is such a way that they do something very exciting.

Professor Wunsch:
50:46 - Even within the scientific community you see, it’s a problem.
If I run a complicated model and I do something to it like ugh melt a lot of ice into the ocean and nothing happens, ugh it’s not likely to get printed. But if I run the same model, and I adjust it in such a way that something dramatic happens to the ocean circulation like the heat transport turns off, ugh it will be published. People will say this is very exciting. It will even get picked by the media. So there is a bias, there’s is a very powerful bias within the media, and within the science community itself, toward results which are ugh dramatizable. If Earth freezes over, that’s a much more interesting story than saying well you know it ugh fluctuates around, sometimes the mass flux goes up by 10%, sometimes it goes down by 20%, but eventually it comes back. Well you know, which would you do a story on? That’s what it’s about.

His words speak for themselves. What else could they possibly mean? Of course, now he claims to have been “tricked” – having been hoisted on his own petard.

The words do speak for themselves: There are limitations in the models and the media often reports the extremes. They do not speak to the notion that models are worthless, therefore AGW is an illusion.

He was “represented” as someone who supports the premise of the show, which is not true. They took his complaints related to the accuracy of reporting to support calling the whole thing a “swindle.” THAT doesn’t follow.

“He was “represented” as someone who supports the premise of the show”No, actually they didn’t. Did you even watch the documentary?

Watching and understanding are not the same thing.

What don’t you understand? They used testimony from a contributor to support a thesis that that testimony doesn’t support. They did it by editing the testimony until it would seem to support the thesis.

it’s not what he said in the propaganda movie, it’s what they left out. It’s really very simple, Anonymous: There’s a complexity in the climate models that does not get represented in the media, and there’s a bias towards the sensational that affects even the scientific journals, but this is not sufficient to invalidate the AGW theory as a basis for action. Durkin chose to leave out this last assertion. A somewhat glaring omission, no?

In order to do a rational analysis of the situation–which is what we all want, right?–then we’d have to weight those statements: other than the “powerful” media bias, how strong is the bias in the scientific community, how does it affect the work being done, and how much? But such a closer investigation is not forthcoming, leaving the viewer “free” to accept Durkin’s hypothesis which does not automatically follow from Wunsch’s few observations. It would be just as rational to conclude that Wunsch is talking about a minor annoyance that has negligible impact.

Don’t you detect the slightest irony when defending a mainstream media documentary, called The Great Global Warming Swindle, which uses testimony from someone who claims that the reality of climate change is too nuanced and dull to get accurately reported in the mainstream media?

This is obviously someone who thought he was engaging in a serious, nuanced and HONEST conversation about the inevitable limits of climate science. How embarrassing afterward to find that the other people in this conversation were people like Fred Singer and Tim Ball - and that the documentarian had no intention of including nuance - or any comment that challenged the point he had set out to make when he conceived his title (which I would guess was many months before he started his research).

Warning: it’s a nuanced, thoughtful response. Some will find it duller and less gratifying than the channel 4 documentary.

For the record, it’s also an excellent summary of the AGW position, as I see it. And incidentally the only responsible position, IMHO: not a knee-jerk apocalyptic vision, as Durkin would have you believe, but a rational assessment of the risks, based on the best possible evidence.

I’d be very interested to hear a reasoned response to Dr Wunsch from Johan or ZOG, or any of the usual suspects. Let’s try to raise the level of debate in this forum, back up from the namecalling and mudslinging to which it’s descended recently…

I agree completely that when you read Wunsch’s response to Channel 4/Durkin whoever – and I mean really read it carefully and weigh his choice of words against the rigid precision of scientific expression – it is clear that your quotations were sliced out of their context by the editors in order to apply their own spin. This is the kind of sensational, shrill and useless so-called debate that Munsch had tried to avoid. I have seen this done firsthand in the editing suite when someone said something in an interview that was dead wrong. Too late to re-shoot the interview & wanting to save the subject embarrassment, the editor did some clever splicing, and no one ever knew the difference. It happens all the time, and if you don’t think producers have their own agendas, you are more naive than poor Dr. Munsch for being suckered by this fellow.

“…Those who were wondering how someone as reputable as Dr. Carl Wunsch…”
I suppose he’s “reputable” because he supports that scientific fascism that stifles any questioning of “climate change consensus”?
He knew exactly what he was doing.
What he didn’t count on was that as a scientist in the employ of government and academia, he had just bit the hand that feeds.
Instead of swallowing like a good boy, he chose to spit it out.

The use of a term you may not enjoy reading for descriptive purposes such as making a point or stating opinion cannot invalidate the content and right to existence of a comment. If you’re going to judge people by the set of words they employ, get off the internet and make it a better place for people intelligent enough to base their opinions of others off of more relevant data.

What are you raving about? He’s a reputable scientist because he has been practising science for some 40 years, and has written many papers and achieved many honours in that time, as you might know if you had bothered to google him.

After all, why would the film makers not want him on their film if they did not want to bask in the lustre of his name?

But possibly you are too dim to understand what he is saying and too bigotted to listen if you did understand. Is that why you chose to smear him? Had you ever even heard of him before this?

Or is there a lot more denial in the air lately? I mean the really dim-witted, mouth-breathing stuff like our “fascist” friend up there, or the ones whose only arguments are to put quotes around “global warming” and “consensus”.

They’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel here–I think the fact that the Swindle was so easily exposed and so transparently unscientific has a lot of people panicking. It was a major miscalculation on Durkin’s part. For me, it really revealed just how thin the ranks of the deniers are, and how weak their few remaining arguments.

The whole denier community, which appears to be about six really well-paid, hard-working guys and a scattering of hangers-on, has really stepped it up since the IPCC Summary was released in February. And the commentary is getting increasingly beligerent. I'm hoping this is a dark hour before the dawn.

As for deleting the reference to “fascist scientist,” I find this language florid and offensive but think that it reflects more negatively on the writer than on anyone else. You have to wonder though: is that all there is?

Dr.Carl Wunsch has questioned his own credentials when he said in the interview that “science is very rarely about proof,science is about plausibility”.
Far from being misled on global warming,does Dr.Wunsch think if he makes his view of science more plausible instead of truthful,that this will solve the problem and the sceptics will go away.Hannibal Lechter was plausible.
With so-called scientists like Wunsch,no wonder we are sceptical,even angry that science has degenerated to such deapths,that if your science is plausible,that’s OK,I might as well go down the pub and decide the science with George Bush over a beer and a couple of shots of who knows what, and then hand down the solution.
Dear wunsch go back to kindergarten,I think that will be far enough back for you to get the hang of science.

All the people who posted anonymous comments should get off this site.Although I oppose Dr.Wunsch in his so-called science,he has the guts to front up,unlike most posters here.So if you are a coward,keep your mouth shut.

If you read this article the conclusion you come too is very different to the main Wikipedia Article:

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2359057.ece

What Carl Wunsch says, in my opinion, is that there is universal truth to this issue.

Well that’s what the documentary is out to prove too and people should be given both sides of the story and choose for themselves. It tries to show that environmental fanatics are the 21th Century religion. Like a religion it rejects any other scientific proof that they might be wrong. In a lot of instances, they “preach the word” by lying, distorting the truth, exaggerating and calling anyone who does not agree with them: Heretics!

Uninformed people then join them in spreading this “Convenient Lie”…

The documentary DOES not deny there is a problem, but rather that the way it is being debated by the fanatics is definitely not scientific.

I watched the video The Great Global Warming Swindle several times. Dr. Wunsch provided compelling testimony that the science did not support the human carbon dioxide induced global warming thesis. He commented correctly that as earth temperatures rises, an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be expected. That is, carbon dioxide follows global warming. His testimony in the documentary was scholarly and well considered.

I imagine that Dr. Wunsch got flack from his collegues and friends regarding his comments shown in The Great Global Warming Swindle, which deviated greatly from the “politically correct” stance that human carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is causing global warming that threatens life on earth. I imagine that the liberal intellectual Eastern Establishment community in which he lives gave him a cold shoulder after the documentary was released. His attempt to recant his testimony smacks of coersion and panic, and looks like a strident attempt restore his social standing.

We need public policy driven by facts and science rather than politics, passion, fear and personal profit. I hope for the best, and act to make the best happen.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.